Event
UPDATE: Saolta Arts’ poetry event on 23 January with Sean Borodale and Elaine Feeney has been relocated to a venue at Portiuncula University Hospital. Please call 0871250461 for further details.
Acclaimed poets Elaine Feeney and Sean Borodale will discuss Sean’s time as Writer in Residence at Portiuncula University Hospital and the value of residencies in non-arts spaces at a special conversation event on 23 January 2020 at Gullane’s Hotel in Ballinasloe.
Their conversation will explore Borodale’s proposal, A Theatre for the Landscapes of Solace, methodologies and considerations for engaging the acute hospital community, and readings of work in progress.
‘Every encounter I met with at Portiuncula University Hospital showed me how remarkable people can be, in finding determination, strength, community and good spirit… It seemed better to give all my attention at PUH to listening. And so these encounters reminded me that writing begins with real moments in which writing doesn’t happen, where life is lived, and where lives meet for a moment, and something is exchanged… My time at the hospital has in so many new ways been pivotal in changing my own relationship to my writing process.’ – Sean Borodale
Event information
Date: Thursday 23 January 2020
Venue: Gullane’s Hotel, Main Street, Ballinasloe
Time: 7-8pm
Booking: The event is free with limited capacity. Register your place at https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/saolta-arts-presents-elaine-feeney-and-sean-borodale-in-conversation-tickets-88854390875
The Saolta Arts’ 2019 PUH Residency Programme was funded by Galway County Council and the National Creativity Fund by Creative Ireland.
Sean Borodale
Sean Borodale was born in London in 1973. He works as an artist and writer, making scriptive and documentary poems written on location. Residencies include Bluecoat Liverpool, Rijksakademie Amsterdam and the Miro Foundation. He graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, with a Masters in Fine Art in 1997. His practice-led PhD in Creative Writing (Site-based Poetry) was awarded in 2017. His work as a poet has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and Costa Book Award. His documentary poem for BBC Radio 3 won the 2014 Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Feature or Documentary. He was selected as a Next Generation Poet in 2014. He has been Creative Arts Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge; Visiting Fellow at the Moore Institute NUIG and Oscar Wilde Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His monographs include Inmates, Jonathan Cape/Penguin (London) forthcoming May 2020; Asylum, Jonathan Cape/Penguin (London) 2018; Bee Journal (with author introduction), Vintage Classics, 2016; Human Work, 80pp, Jonathan Cape/Random House, 2015; Bee Journal, 96pp, Jonathan Cape/Random House, 2012; and Notes for an Atlas, 372pp, Isinglass, 2003; 2007. http://www.seanborodale.com
Elaine Feeney
Elaine Feeney was born in the West of Ireland and lives in Athenry. She published her first chapbook, Indiscipline in 2007, and has since published three collections of poetry, Where’s Katie? (2010), The Radio Was Gospel (2014) and Rise (2017) with Salmon Publishing. Feeney was commissioned in 2016 to write a national screen and stage piece, WRoNGHEADED by the Liz Roche Company, which has toured internationally since its first run at Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival. She was Poetry Ireland’s Poetry Ambassador in 2018. Feeney was commissioned in 2019 by Minerva Projects to respond to the work of American artist, Daisy Patton. Feeney writes about national identity, institutions and particularly women in Ireland. She teaches English & History at St. Jarlath’s College for Boys, Tuam, Creative Writing & Poetry at the National University of Ireland, Galway and she is the Creative Director of the Tuam Oral History Project at the same university, working with survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home to archive their narrative. Feeney’s work has been widely published and anthologized including, Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland, The Irish Times, The Manchester Review, Stonecutter Journal and Coppernickel. Her debut novel, As You Were, will be published by Harvill Secker/ VINTAGE in March 2020. Tweets @elainefeeney16
Saolta Arts
Saolta Arts runs the west of Ireland’s leading Arts and Health programme as a means of improving the hospital experience for patients, staff and visitors. Relaunched as Saolta Arts from Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust in 2019, the organisation believes access to the arts promotes well-being and enhances the hospital environment. Since 2003 it has provided a multi-disciplinary programme of events and activities, including exhibitions, participative workshops, music, theatre and poetry. For information regarding the arts programme, see https://saoltaarts.com/ or phone 091-544979.
